#Questioning established meanings

[mumblesplash]

gem, what happened to your eye?

(wanted to upload this panel separately, original is from this comic)

[serpentface]

how do you come up with the ways cultures in your setting stylize people/animals/the world in general in their artwork, i.e. jewlery, rock carvings, statues, etc? Each culture in your world seems to have a very unique "art style" and I love it a lot - makes them seem that much more 'real'. This is something I struggle with a lot in my own worldbuilding and I'd love to pick your brain if possible 😁

I think a starting point is to have a research process based in the material realities of the culture you're designing for. Ask yourself questions like:

Where do they live? What's the climate/ecosystem(s) they are based in? What geographic features are present/absent?

What is their main subsistence method? (hunter gatherer, seasonal pastoralist, nomadic pastoralist, settled agriculturalist, a mix, etc)

What access to broader trade networks do they have and to whom? Are there foreign materials that will be easily accessible in trade and common in use, or valuable trade materials used sparingly in limited capacities?

Etc

And then do some research based on the answers, in order to get a sense of what materials they would have routine access to (ie dyes, metal, textiles, etc) and other possible variables that would shape how the art is made and what it's used for. This is just a foundational step and won't likely play much into designing a Style.

If you narrow these questions down very specifically, (ie in the context of the Korya post- grassland based mounted nomads, pastoralist and hunter-gatherer subsistence, access to wider trade networks and metals), you can direct your research to specific real world instances that fit this general idea. This is not to lift culturally specific concepts from the real world and slap them into your own setting, but to notice commonalities this lifestyle enforces - (ie in the previous example- mounted nomadic peoples are highly mobile and need to easily carry their wealth (often on clothing and tack) therefore small, elaborate decorative artwork that can easily be carried from place to place is a very likely feature)

For the details of the art itself, I come up with loose 'style guides' (usually just in my head) and go from there.

Here's some example questions for forming a style (some are more baseline than others)

Are geometric patterns favored? Organic patterns? Representative patterns (flowers, animals, stars, etc)? Abstract patterns?

Is there favored material(s)? Beads, bone, clay, metals, stones, etc.

When depicting people/animals, is realism favored? Heavy stylization? The emotional impression of an animal? Are key features accentuated?

How perspective typically executed? Does art attempt to capture 3d depth? Does it favor showing the whole body in 2 dimensions (ie much of Ancient Egyptian art, with the body shown in a mix of profile and forward facing perspective so all key attributes are shown)? Will limbs overlap? Are bodies shown static? In motion?

Does artwork of people attempt to beautify them? Does it favor the culture's conception of the ideal body?

Are there common visual motifs? Important symbols? Key subject matters?

What is the art used for? Are its functions aesthetic, tutelary, spiritual, magical? (Will often exist in combination, or have different examples for each purpose)

Who is represented? Is there interest in everyday people? Does art focus on glorifying warriors, heroes, kings?

Are there conventions for representing important figures? (IE gods/kings/etc being depicted larger than culturally lesser subjects)

Is there visual shorthand to depict objects/concepts that are difficult to execute with clarity (the sun, moon, water), or are invisible (wind, the soul), or have no physical component (speech)?

Etc

Deciding on answers to any of these questions will at least give you a unique baseline, and you can fill in the rest of the gaps and specify a style further until it is distinct. Many of these questions are not mutually exclusive, both in the sense of elements being combined (patterns with both geometric and organic elements) or a culture having multiple visual styles (3d art objects having unique features, religious artwork having its own conventions, etc).

Also when you're getting in depth, you should have cultural syncretism in mind. Cultures that routinely interact (whether this interaction is exchange or exploitation) inevitably exchange ideas, which can be especially visible in art. Doing research on how this synthesizing of ideas works in practice is very helpful- what is adopted or left out from an external influence, what is retained from an internal influence, what is unique to this synthesis, AND WHY. (I find Greco-Buddhist art really interesting, that's one of many such examples)

Looking at real world examples that fit your parameters can be helpful (ie if I've decided on geometric patterns in my 'style guide', I'll look at actual geometric patterns). And I strongly encourage trying to actually LEARN about what you're seeing. All art exists in a context, and having an understanding of how the context shapes art, how art does and doesn't relate to broader aspects of a society, etc, can help you when synthesizing your own.

[narutothoughts]

Au where Naruto is desperately in love with kakashi and shows it with every breath.

Every time kakashi is in the room, he’s who Naruto turns to.

When kakashi is standing at Naruto’s back he relaxes, not even able to conceive the thought of Kakashi intentionally hurting or betraying him.

Every second that Kakashi focuses on Naruto alone is enough to keep him going for a week.

During fights, kakashi is the one person he watches but almost never interferes with.

He trusts kakashi to have a plan and to know what he’s doing.

Backs his plays without even knowing the endgame.

Makes his every move perfectly in sink with Kakashi’s everytime they work together.

Kakashi notices in a distant way, hard not to when everything that happens on the battlefield is recorded with his sharingan, but he doesn’t put together what it means. Doesn’t give it a second thought. It’s just Naruto being Naruto.

Wanna know who does tho? Obito.

He can see every single memory that gets recorded by Kakashi. He’d have to be dead to miss the warmth that Minato’s son looks at Kakashi with. Have to be blind not to notice that it’s love that makes those blue eyes so bright and fierce in Kakashi’s memories.

Obito…Obito wants

[tev-the-random]

"Aw man, what are they gonna do with Shadow now that he got his closure with Maria's wish and everything? What sort of story can he possibly have after that?"

*points frantically at Sonic 06*

[beneathsilverstars]

okay the loop pronoun thing its like its like the splinter in my mind that sticks out just enough to get caught on stuff and irriatate the stuff further in.

because they start off with the royal we before going oh wait thats a personal thing not how other people refer to you. so that with the masking literally everything i am genuinely completely undecided on if the pronouns are like they actually just dont associate any with themselves anymore, their lying and covering it up so siffrin wont suspect anything or if its like they just need some time to be around people again and then itll be like ohhhhhh thats why i like these right.

and from there it goes into we literally have no idea how they act around people. okay they were siffrin but now have been so completely transformed by the looping that they are different enough to qualify as someone else.

they get called shy by the party but is that because they realize talking to them will have permanet consequences? is it because they remind them of who theyve lost? is it because they just havent talked to anyone aside from siffrin?

if they got comfortable around others would they be sassy like they are around siffrin?

loops everything is so wrapped up in the timeloops that its like there is almost nothing that can be said for sure about how they would act outside them at this point its like yeah they were siffrin but theyve forgotten all that and are different at least somewhat from everything.

the looping time really has utterly crushed them and then remolded them into something new and it is shown so so well through what is and isnt there about them and its so irritating they are literally a puzzle begging to be solved and the pieces are all blackened from fire and some are a bit out of shape and its like this used to be a solvable puzzle but at this point who knows!

yesss i do think the they/them was just the quickest default that they at least knew they didn't hate, and they're no longer Siffrin Enough to share siffrin's preference for he/him or they/them, though they may now (or one day) have their own preference for they/them. sometimes i give loop more pronouns later because there's no way they won't change a lot post-loops! (or in aus where they've otherwise had more time to think about it and try things out.) i'm fond of she/they/it loop but i may be biased lol

WE JUST KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT THEM!!!

we know they were siffrin, a long long time ago.

we know how they act with siffrin, who doesn't yet know who they are, during the timeloops -- which are all three very big and specific criteria.

and then we know how they acted in acts 5 and 6, which are also super unique and unreplicable situations! obviously in act 6 they were just faced with the fact that a happy ending was possible all along but it can now never be theirs, on top of this being the first interaction in which siffrin knew loop's identity and loop knew siffrin knew. and then in act 5, this was their first interaction with the party as loop, which only happened because of desperate circumstances, and started off on the very wrong foot of utter devastation at not being recognized, which meant they abandoned their plans and improvised, all while everyone is super worried about siffrin and then trying to navigate the fucked up house. very weird and overwhelming situations!!

you can draw clues about how loop might act post-canon from all of these things we know, but you can't just straight up extrapolate, yknow? their in-game feelings and motivations just will never again apply in the same way, post-canon. and on top of the new contexts in which they'll be living, their trajectory will surely be strongly affected by their immediate post-canon circumstances, to the point that even putting them back into more-familiar contexts somehow would now provoke new responses. they could go in so many directions!! we just don't know!!!

sometimes people are talking about how loop would act post-canon and they say things so definitively and im like. man i think it depends 😭 we know so little about them and they know so little about themself.

[bizlybebo]

hi guys ^__^

[quietwingsinthesky]

choosing to give lucy the headcanon of semi-fluency in french (<- language credit in college that she kept actively trying to keep useful) solely so that she can speak to ezio when he bleeds over through desmond. he is also only technically fluent, and his french is like six hundred years older than hers. something about the two of them being able to communicate but neither in their first language…

[vegalocity]

Considering: how Minyi might react to bb Bell.

Well- it depends on how old she was when Bell was born. She's about six during the events of LMK so depending on how long Goliath and Meiyun were together before they had Bell she could be anywhere from eight- to like fourteen when they had Bell

I think on the younger side she just FULLY adopts her as a baby sister even though that's absolutely not how family works, Nah it totally IS tho because the spiders haven't had any kids in hundreds of years since Huntsman and Goliath became of age, so the idea that they wouldn't be communally raising the kid is of course absurd.

and it's not that she wouldn't adopt Bell as a baby sister if she was more on the older side, but i think it'd be more... complicated.

Minyi is fully human, she's BEEN fully human and she will continue to BE fully human until she almost dies when a case goes too wrong and someone injects her with that vial of 'just in case' spider venom to rapidly heal her wounds but also make her a hybrid like her father is now. She had to fight for clan acceptance beyond 'Huntsman and Goliath individually like her well enough but she can't REALLY be clan because she and the Queen don't like eachother' and arguably still doesn't have it and might not until she's fully an adult and goes from Teen Sleuth to Kingpin crimelord (No joke thats her future when she hits adult years) but Bell was named princess from the moment she was handed to SQ

If she's a teenager at the time i think she'd still love and care for Bell very much, but I think there would be some sort of tone of muted resentment to it. Like, the kind where you do kinda feel bad about how easy something came to someone younger when you had to fight for every step in the process, but you also aren't REALLY surprised. Because when did ANYTHING ever come easy to Wong Minyi? Her life has been nothing but the hard way for longer than she can remember.

That said- when she's an adult and IS that Kingpin of crime, forcing the spider clan back into proper relevancy (albeit through different means than they would have expected) she ABSOLUTELY would go full 'this is my precious baby sister Bell she's the crime princess of this mafia and if anyone makes her cry you're taking a long walk of a short pier'

[la-pheacienne]

my new fav common argument used by Tumblr's Absolute Authorities of George Martin's Work (towards the end of a debate when they don't have any actual arguments left) is that "Fire and Blood is bad". it's bAd u guyz! what are we even fighting about? oh you thought we were having a genuine debate about whether the tv show is a faithful adaptation of the source material and the implications of the different perspectives for the characters, premise, lore and overall message of the story? well fuck you we're not doing that because guess what, the source material is BAD anyway and the 98494 receipts you just gave us are useless now because we just moved the goalposts and you're a loser for even engaging with the source material to begin with lmaooo

[bigcryptiddies]

It’s not specific to dav by any means, I just wish player characters were able to have the same depth of trauma and vulnerability as companions are on their own specific quests at any point in their respective games and Rook seems especially “smiling through it all” about everything because the rest of the game is also very sanitized compared to the others before it

[a-wins-a-win]

it’s thinking about lucadia hours

[lys-jeorge]

Anyone wanna know an inconsequential BTS thing I always found a bit sus and for some reason just popped back into my brain?

Yeh? ok

When they're asked who the best dancer is and they all say J-Hope, now the other 6 all agreeing on this? I'd be suprised but it's not inherently sus, the sus is J-Hope. What's your answer my guy? Even if he thinks it's himself usually they have a someone other than themself answer they'll use, you'd think even if he wanted to say himself he'd say probably Jimin, but someone else, him not doing that is so like...

when they were rookies they were told this is what their answer should be, and they've stuck with it ever since.

[lover-of-mine]

Okay, so I've been feeling deranged about couches since Buck fell asleep on Eddie's couch but it got me thinking about how, speaking literally here, Buck also didn't pick Eddie's couch. Sure, Eddie's house is clearly a place where Buck is comfortable but it's not like Buck was helping Eddie pick furniture (that we know of). But that also got me thinking about the fact that the 3 girlfriends Buck had came with literal couches. Buck says 2 because Ali helped him pick the loft and Taylor got rid of the couch Ali picked BUT Buck lived in Abby's apartment, so Abby also came with a couch. So 3 relationships, 3 couches, but Buck only says 2. That got me thinking that even though Buck didn't pick Abby's couch, he doesn't feel like he was forced into Abby's couch, like he feels about Ali and Taylor. And I know it's not really about literal couches as much as I'm reading into it, I think it's more about the stability Buck feels, or doesn't feel, attached to it. I think most of all Buck felt seen by Abby in ways he didn't with Ali or Taylor. And maybe I'm thinking too hard about pieces of furniture and talks in kitchens, but the thing with 6x12 and buddie is about Eddie understanding Buck in a way other people in his life don't. And obviously Eddie is a way more steady presence in Buck's life than Abby ever was, but a key difference between Abby to Ali and Taylor is how much they talked. And maybe there isn't a reason why Buck didn't consider Abby's couch, maybe Buck just didn't think of it, but i kinda wanna stretch the couch metaphor longer than it was intended, because in the end, if I do, it shows Buck doesn't mind having couches picked out for him, as long as he feels seen enough so it won't matter whose choice it was.

[wubblebubbleballxtream]

guys if you had to pick which one

[sleaze4sleaze]

I’m feeling very. Hm. So, I don’t mind sharing with R.iddler, chill with it it doesn’t bother me, HOWEVER, I’m suddenly feeling a serge of ‘this one is mine’ over TNBA Eddie… it’s intriguing

[fingertipsmp3]

Lads I’m rereading GtN and I’m thinking too much about this line from Sister Glaurica

What does she know??!